


Hiraeth

by Polly_Lynn



Category: Castle
Genre: F/M, Family, Friendship, Home, Love, Male-Female Friendship, Nostalgia, Requited Love, Returning Home, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 03:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4464248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She lets herself fall with her palms hitting the bed on either side of his head. She knocks her forehead against his. Kisses him, and there's a little bit of punishment in it. For him and for her, because this is strange. And silly. He'll live through one night spent apart. They'll both live."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is a brief 4-shot (HA! DON'T EVEN. It is already written and absolutely a 4-shot). Set early season 5 in the "Cloudy With a Chance of Murder" (5 x 02) time frame.

 

* * *

 

hiraeth / 'hEr-rIth / (n) [Welsh] —

a homesickness for a home you can't return to, or that never was

* * *

 

"But why do you have to stay?" She can hardly make out what he's saying. He's belly down across the bed with his head hanging down and his face mashed into the comforter.

"I don't _have_ to." She travels from armoire to open overnight bag, setting a neatly folded shirt and pullover on top of the already-established pile of workout clothes. "But I'm going to."

"But _why?"_ He plants his palms on the floor and lifts his head to follow as she travels around the room, gathering up things she'll need.

"Because we haven't gotten together in a while and it's a big deal that he's cooking." She circles around to the overnight bag again. Something isn't right. "Castle!"

"What?" He rolls on to his back, his hair standing on end as his head dangles over the edge of the bed.

She wordlessly holds out her hand. He smiles and reaches for it, but she slaps him away. "Castle. Hand it over."

"Hand what over?" His eyes go wide. It's not even mock innocence. He's not even trying that hard.

"Whatever you took out of the bag." She thinks about it. "I'm guessing underwear."

" _Not_ underwear," he says sourly, pulling a pair of socks out from under his hips. "So there."

"That's your master plan for derailing me?" She rolls the pair into a ball and lobs it at his forehead. "No mere mortal could pack another pair of socks."

"No!" He catches the ball against his own face and tosses it into the bag. There's some sullen _oomph_ behind it. "My plan was much more subtle than that."

"Subtle." She snorts at the word. She turns away, trying to remember what the hell she was just telling herself she needed to be sure not to forget, but he manages to snag her by the belt loop at just the right moment. It unbalances her, and in a move he really should be too big to pull off gracefully, he topples her back on to the bed and quickly pins her.

"My plan was to distract and stall and undermine by any means necessary until it was too late for you to pack a bag. That way you'd have to come back and sleep with _me_ instead of curling up under your Duran Duran posters."

He's undoing the buttons of her blouse while he monologues. Actually _successfully_ undoing them and there's really no excuse for that. There's really no way he should be getting away with it, except he makes her laugh. He makes her giddy and weak in the knees when he's ridiculous like this. Shamelessly crazy about her.

"Duran Duran?" She finally pushes him away. A little at least. She makes half-hearted progress at sitting up. At pulling her blouse closed again.

"Oh, you're too young for Duran Duran aren't you? Ouch." He tugs out the back of her shirt just when she's gotten the front tucked back in. "New Kids on the Block? Oh, God . . . not Boyz II Men."

She turns on him, neatly catching both his wrists and sending him backward. She slings her thigh over to the far side of his waist and looms over him.

"One"—she flicks his ear—"I am _not_ too young for Duran Duran. Two: For _so many_ reasons, you need to stop naming boy bands. Three: What the hell are you talking about?"

"Well, if you're leaving me alone"—he gives a forlorn sigh—"you're just going to have to live with me fantasizing about you curled up in your teenage bedroom."

She pops straight up, letting go his hands as it clicks, and it's a funny thing. A strange thing that there's no reason he should know. No real reason they'd have talked about it, except that's one of the long list of strange things about them. About this.

They _know_ each other. Almost too well, in some ways. He's been metaphorically going through her underwear drawer for nearly four years, and now that it's literal, it's strange finding out what they don't know about each other.

"Kate?" His voice snaps her out of her reverie. He's reaching up for her, but his hand falls away in a flutter of uncertainty. "Look, I'm sorry if I'm being a pain. I'm kidding—mostly kidding. I wouldn't . . ."

She lets herself fall with her palms hitting the bed on either side of his head. She knocks her forehead against his. Kisses him, and there's a little bit of punishment in it. For him _and_ for her, because this is _strange._ And silly. He'll live through one night spent apart. They'll both live. "It's fine."

It _is_ fine, and she kind of can't believe it. She's not a fan of clingy. Not at all, but then again, that's not exactly what this is. He _will_ miss her and there's not a bit of self-consciousness in him about that. But he's kidding, too. Performing and playful. Making _her_ playful, too.

"It's fine," she says again and lets herself rest against him. "It's just . . ."

"Just what?" he asks softly. He combs his fingers through her hair and waits. Quiet now and ready to be serious if she is, and that's strange, too.

"My dad's place." She rolls her head on his shoulder to look up at him. An awkward angle, but she loves this view. The underside of his jaw and the sweep of his cheek. "It's . . . He moved. After."

"Oh." His throat bobs hard. "It's not . . . not your room."

It makes her laugh. A little huff of air because he's so nonplussed that she wonders about the world building he's done. She thinks of Nikki, living alone in the very place her mother was murdered and feels a strange ache for her fictional self. For _him_ , because he feels so much so deeply, and whether the sorrow is real or imagined hardly matters.

"Not mine." She pushes his collar open wider with her nose and presses her lips to his skin. "Just a guest room."

"Well, then." He moves suddenly. Quickness that surprises her again and she's under him. He's peppering her face and neck with kisses. "You _definitely_ don't need to stay."

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She means to go straight to the car. She glances at her watch and she's already pushing it. She's already likely to be in for one of her dad's heavy looks, but with the box tucked under her arm, her feet have a different idea. They pass the car by. They make a right and a left. They cross angle-wise, in the middle of the street, like they did every day of her life for years and years, and then she's looking up."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Second chapter of this 4-shot, set early S5.

 

 

She's supposed to bring dessert. She'd said she would, and after Castle had successfully derailed some not particularly serious plans to bake, She'd figured she'd pop around the corner to Bubby's and grab a couple of pieces of pie for take out. But she turns the other way out of her front door. She heads directly for the car, and she's behind the wheel before she's even thought about it.

It's stupid. She tells herself it's stupid as she snakes her way uptown. She hasn't been there in years. Thirteen to be exact, and it's the Upper West Side. The chances of the tiny little place with exactly _nothing_ stylish or trendy about it still eking out an existence are slim to nil. But she works her way steadily toward it, sliding into an unbelievable parking spot that opens up just as she slows, trying to remember which awning, exactly, it ought to be.

Her feet carry her. Memory carries her, and she's sure, even when she's tugging the door open that it can't be right. She's sure, even when the well-remembered bell with its strange half clang rings out, that it can't be the place.

But it is, and it's like stepping back in time. The moment is crowded, almost overwhelming with the rush of sensation. The lingering, late-evening scent of things baked hours ago and the fresher tang of yeast wafting up from the huge metal bowls filled with dough proofing for tomorrow's offerings, sweet and savory alike. The well-worn booths, spotlessly clean, and the chip in the glass case just exactly the size of the tip of her pinky, just exactly where she remembers it.

"Help you, miss?"

She's startled by the young man's voice. More so when she recognizes him. That takes a few heady seconds as his face wavers between the deeply bored kid she remembers and the slightly too young version of his father he is now. He wipes his hands on a towel tucked in the side of his pants and pulls the pencil from behind his ear, gestures so uncannily familiar that her mouth opens and closes soundlessly on her first couple of tries.

"Macarons."

She manages to get that out eventually, and he does a double-take of his own. He must recognize her voice, though her face seems to have faded from memory. She looks down at the floor, agonizingly nervous all of a sudden.

He'd had a crush on her back in the day. One that manifested in strange, sullen comments blurted at the most inopportune times, and a host of unasked for extras whenever it turned out to be a dessert-mandatory night for the Beckett household and she'd run down here to pick up something. Her parents had teased her mercilessly.

_And what bounty has the future Duchess of Desserts brought this evening?_

"We have a few." The young man looks doubtful, but it's exaggerated. A little flirtatious, but in a general way, like he's dismissed whatever flash of recognition gave him pause a moment ago. It's salesmanship now, not an unwelcome trip down memory lane, and thank _God_ for that. "I don't know if I can let you have them, though."

"What?" It's too loud. Too sharp. She smiles at him. Tries to recover, but her body feels strange, like she's been knocked out of time. "I mean . . ." Her shoulders sag. She gives up. "Why not?"

"Teasing!" he says quickly. "I mean, sort of. These are end of day now." He's sliding open the case from his side. Tugging trays toward him, one by one, and filling a neat little box, even though she hasn't asked for anything. He gives her an appraising look, then snags a chocolate with a square of wax paper and pushed it across the counter. "Still delicious"—he nods at the cookie, encouraging—"but you have to promise to come back for first thing in the morning sometime."

She nods, and that's strange, too. Far more emphatic than it needs to be. She shoves the macaron in her mouth, desperate for some kind of stage business, but that throws her for loop, too. It's the same as she remembers it. The melting sensation. The mellow, nutty sweetness of the cookie and just the right amount of dark, bitter chocolate in the filling. It's exactly the same and it's almost more than she can stand.

"I will." She swallows down the rest of the cookie and sweeps the box he's filled toward her, greedy and protective. She digs out cash and pushes it back across the counter, too impatient to wait even for the little bit of change coming to her. "I promise," she calls over her shoulder as the broken bell sounds again. "I'll come back."

* * *

 

She means to go straight to the car. She glances at her watch and she's already pushing it. She's already likely to be in for one of her dad's heavy looks, but with the box tucked under her arm, her feet have a different idea. They pass the car by. They make a right and a left. They cross angle-wise, in the middle of the street, like they did every day of her life for years and years, and then she's looking up.

Then there's no air in her lungs, because it hasn't been quite thirteen years, but it's close. Nothing is different and everything is. There's an old, gnarled beech tree gone and a new, fiery Japanese maple that looks out of place. Two doors down, there's a sober black fence that used to be painted orange or purple or any of a number of garish shades. A neat, pocket-square yard that used to be filled with decorations for holidays—real and made up—all year long.

And here, there's art glass framing the door to the entry way, trying hard to look original, though it's easily a decade or two older than the building is. She peers through it. Presses her nose and sees that the wall of steel mailboxes is gone, replaced by a front of dark polished wood just distressed enough to look as though it's old, but well cared for. It's divided into six equal columns, each with a smart-looking dial lock

It makes her laugh. It all makes her laugh as she backs away to look up. To pick out a certain window and raise up on her toes, craning sideways to find a certain series of convenient footholds rising from the lawn around the side to the eave just underneath. It all makes her laugh until she sees the sign in the window.

_For Rent_

She goes then. Turns immediately and goes with dragging steps. She crosses at the corner, not looking either way. Looking down. The spell is broken and she doesn't know how to feel.

She's distracted as she slips behind the wheel. As she wends her way East toward her dad's on not-particularly-good autopilot. She takes one wrong turn and another and she's more than a little late by the time she finds somewhere plausible to park overnight. She's in for more than a heavy look.

She should be, and that's how the moment starts out. Her dad pulls open the door, annoyance thick enough around him she can practically see it in the air. Worry, if she's being fair to him. But he sees something in her and it dissolves instantly.

"Katie?"

It's a quiet, open question. Careful, but inviting and she doesn't know how to answer it any more than she knows how to feel. She holds out the box.

"Dessert," she says, surprised to find even that much so hard.

"Ah." He recognizes the box instantly. He's startled, as well he might be. Knocked out of time, too, and suddenly playful. Light and teasing. "And on what delicacies from the Marquise de Macaron shall we feast this evening?"

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thanks for reading. Mmmm. I want macarons now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She can't sleep. It's his fault. Entirely his fault, even though she's eaten more tonight than she has in months. That and actual black coffee with the macarons might seem the more likely culprits, but it's absolutely his fault. She wants to call and tell him it is. She wants to yell at him a little for the mess he's made of her in just a few short weeks. For how essential the warmth and weight and white noise of him at her back has become so quickly."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Third chapter of this 4-shot. Set early season 5 in the "Cloudy With a Chance of Murder" (5 x 02) time frame.

 

* * *

 

She can't sleep. It's his fault. _Entirely_ his fault, even though she's eaten more tonight than she has in months. That and actual black coffee with the macarons might seem the more likely culprits, but it's still absolutely, 100% his fault.

She wants to call and tell him that it is. She wants to yell at him a little for the mess he's made of her in just a few short weeks. For how _essential_ the warmth and weight and white noise of him at her back has become so quickly, when she's never particularly welcomed another body in her bed before.

But the trade off for the satisfaction of yelling is confession. Is how insufferably smug he'll be about it. And how innocently, sweetly charmed, and that's almost worse. That's _definitely_ worse, she thinks rolling on to her back for the fifteenth time in as many minutes.

And it's not _quite_ entirely his fault. Except it is. Because she'd never have been thinking about the old neighborhood if not for him, and it's more than just one innocent assumption. More than just an offhand joke about boy bands and her teenage room.

She thinks back to a year ago. Trying to explain herself to him. Trying to explain herself to _herself,_ and calling it a wall inside seemed like the right metaphor. But more and more—especially these past few weeks when everything, inside and out, seems to be changing so quickly—she thinks of it as doors. Hundreds of them inside her, and she's long since lost count of how many she's slammed behind her, without regret or a single look back.

And she stands by a lot of them. Most of them, maybe. She's never been particularly nostalgic. She's always been quick enough to see the end of things—practical enough—that she's prone to leave people's heads spinning at how quickly and quietly the end comes for her. Friends. Lovers. Relationships of all kinds that had run their course. She's walked away immediately, without malice. Without any particular fond remembrance or after-the-fact, rose-colored glasses either.

But some she's come to see differently. Some, she's come to revisit with her heart pounding and her fingers shaking as she reaches out, because there's something dear behind it. Something vital and precious that she could still love now, if only . . .

_If only._ That kind of thinking is pure him. _His_ influence. His infuriating need to know _why_ , but more than that, too. His . . . ambition for her. The fact that he wants so much more for her than she's let herself want in thirteen years.

It's him that won't let her sleep and it isn't. It's a second floor _For Rent_ sign she'd never have seen if not for him.

 

* * *

 

It's nearly one when she gives in. Half gives in. She's already slipped into her workout clothes and scraped her hair up into a pony tail. If it comes up, there's some half-assed plan in the back of her mind about telling her dad she couldn't sleep so she's going for a run. As if that will work.

She hadn't planned to call him. Castle. She hadn't really _planned_ any of this since she slid into that parking space outside the bakery, but with her running shoes in one hand and her phone in the other, she's suddenly sending him the address. She's suddenly, silently easing the front door open and tiptoeing down to the landing below in her stocking feet.

Her phone's lit up already by the time she makes it. A single question mark that makes her unreasonably irritable as her fingers fly over the screen.

_Coming or not?_

She stuffs one foot, then the other into her shoes, a little less careful as she makes her way down the next two flights and out into the tiny, gated yard in front of her dad's building.

_That's what she said!_

"That doesn't even make sense," she mutters to herself two seconds before he texts exactly the same thing.

She lifts the latch to the hip-high gate carefully, cringing as it inevitably squeals. Shaking her head at herself as the sound is inevitably lost in the long blare of horns a block or two away. She looks down just as the phone flares again.

_On my way._

* * *

 

She's thoroughly cased the place by the time he strolls up, way sooner than should really be possible, even at this time of night. He's trying hard not to pant, but the look she gives him says she knows that he hasn't been strolling for long. That he probably ran from the subway or wherever the cab dropped him.

"Hey." He strides right up, and the look he gives _her_ says he doesn't care if she knows. He kisses her like it's been a hundred years and he has to learn her all over again, but curiosity gets the better of him. "What's this?"

He squints up at the building, and she thinks again how stupid this is. How _reckless_ given that she's hardly even off suspension. But the bright red of the _For Rent_ sign burns the inside of her eyelids, and she wants this. She wants to tug him through this door with her.

_Window._

Whatever.

"Come on," she says, pulling him along.

He follows, of course. Where she'd be the one dig her heels in—stand her ground until he'd given her every last detail, three times over—he follows, his face alight, and she wants it even more.

They slip through a break in the hedge dividing one yard from the next. He rustles like mad going through, muttering curses as the branches catch at his jacket. His pants. She glares back at him. It's not particularly fair. The gap isn't as wide or well-used as it once was. It's hardly even sized for her now, but she wants this. She wants it to be exactly like it always was, but it's been thirteen years. _Thirteen_ , and still she feels a pang when she stands on the spot where the upturned wheelbarrow ought to be.

"Beckett?"

It's more vibration right at her ear than it is sound. He's at her back, ready as ever to follow her lead. It calms her. It makes the moment—this new moment sloshing around with everything old—just right.

"Boost me," she mouths, turning to him and pushing down on his shoulder.

He looks from her to the side of the building, putting it together. Following the most likely route to the most likely destination and his eyes light up, a flash of fear that puts a delicious edge on the eagerness. He drops to one knee and laces his fingers together, rising up at just the right time for her to catch the first metal _L_ jutting from the side of the building and brace her foot against the stone.

Muscle memory takes over. She jukes to the left and swings herself, letting the momentum carry her high enough to grab the next handhold and the next, and then she's in a crouch on top of the eave. She wonders, like she has every single time before, why they're even there—the irregular, de facto rungs. She has no idea what they're for, and she wants to tell him that. She wants to hear his wild theories about what they might have been fifty years ago. A hundred.

But he's down on the ground. He's down on the ground, and the first of them is too high. There's no one to boost him. She hadn't thought it through. When she saw the wheelbarrow was missing, her mind had made the leap to him and gone no further and she's crushed. She _wants_ this.

Her face falls. He's staring up at her, perplexed. Waiting to see what's next, but he knows then. He knows in that instant. Not just how important this insane plan is to her, but how to pull it off. He raises one finger. An absolutely determined _hold on_ gesture before he moves out of sight.

She hears the drag of something. Faint, but it makes her freeze in place. Every noise is deafening from her vulnerable position, every movement cause for alarm, but he's back and some of the tension bleeds out of her. He's dragging something heavy looking. One of those decorative things for hiding coiled up hoses, and it might just be tall enough.

He braces on hand against the building and makes his unsteady way on top of the thing. The handhold is a reach, but he has it. He has his foot planted and he's moving. Climbing steadily, if not particularly gracefully, but his arm span is just that much greater than hers that he doesn't need to do quite as much acrobatic work. He's nearing the end, about to reach a shaking foot toward the overhang when she has a sudden, dizzying vision of of the thing collapsing under their combined weight. She's never made the climb with anyone else before.

"Castle," she hisses. "Hold up."

The frazzled, _you have_ got _to be kidding me_ look he gives her makes her want to giggle. Or maybe it's the sheer stupidity of this. Maybe it's the fact that any second this could take a turn and go really, _really_ badly for them.

"One second," she mouths, quieter now. Gulping down air and fighting hard against the laughter trying to erupt. She turns to the window, flicking open her knife with a practice gesture and praying to whatever god or goddess of stupid teenagers and suddenly nostalgic thirty-somethings might be listening that in their enthusiasm for cosmetic upgrades to the building, they haven't replaced the childishly simple sash locks.

Luck is with her. She hardly has to think and the curved brass tongue is turning. She's soundlessly pushing the window up and slipping through. She finds the floor with the toe of one shoe, then the other. She leans back through the window, craning around the frame.

"Now, Castle!" She holds her hand out to him. "Quick!"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Just one more slightly longer chapter after this. Thanks for reading. I'm sorry for fomenting a global craving for macarons. I still want macarons.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He obeys without a word. Solemnly, and she thinks he knows where they are. What this is about. He must know, and it fills her up the way he doesn't ask. He doesn't barge ahead peeking at things or barrage her with guesses and observations. He follows. He quietly takes her hand and follows as her feet lead them down one long hall to the last door to the left."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Final chapter. Set early season 5 in the "Cloudy With a Chance of Murder" (5 x 02) time frame.

 

* * *

 

hiraeth / 'hEr-rIth / (n) [Welsh] —

a homesickness for a home you can't return to, or that never was

* * *

 

She makes him take his shoes off, more for ritual than anything. She feels safe now, even though it's crazy. Even though the downstairs neighbor or anyone could hear them or see them and call the cops. Hell someone could have already. Any minute, they could see the tell-tale lights rolling across the absolutely blank walls. But it won't happen. She knows—just _knows_ —it won't.

He obeys without a word. Solemnly, and she thinks he knows where they are. What this is about. He _must_ know, and it fills her up the way he doesn't ask. He doesn't barge ahead peeking at things or barrage her with guesses and observations. He follows. He quietly takes her hand and follows as her feet lead them down one long hall to the last door to the left.

It's open. That bothers her. She was never one to plaster her door with KEEP OUT! signs or anything at all, really. Keeping it closed was enough. An unspoken agreement that worked well enough most of the time, and the sight of it gaping like this feels like a violation. A sin against her that raises a thick cloud of hurt and anger.

He knows. Before she does, maybe, he knows and his arms are around her, holding her tight. Rocking her just enough that it's soothing, rather than confining. That it quiets, rather than drawing all the fight in her up and out.

He knows when she settles, too. When the cracked-open door is an invitation, not an insult, an she's working up the courage. He nudges her then. Comes around behind her and bends his knee in to the back of hers to make her feet move.

"Come on, Becks." He whispers the name into the nape of her neck and it sounds wrong and right and thrilling. "Don't you want to show me?"

And she does. She _really_ does.

* * *

 

He's a different man on the other side of the threshold. Or the same man he usually is. She's still knocked out of time and her _now_ s and _then_ s are like strangers brushing by each other on a busy street. But he's nosy. He touches everything, stooping here and reaching up there for a better look. Running his hands over faint cracks in the plaster and eyeing up the five, six, seven layers of paint that have this particular window sealed tight.

He finds the hidey hole under the closet floorboard ten seconds after he sticks his head inside, even though it's pitch black that far from the streetlight spilling in. "Oooh, what scandalous things did little Katie Beckett keep in here?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" She folds her arms over her chest and looms over him.

He grins up at her from his knees. "Yes. Yes, please, I would _very_ much like to know."

"Later," she says. "If you're good."

" _Good_ good?" He stands. Advances toward her with purpose and plants his hands on the wall to either side of her hips. "Or just _good_?"

He lowers his mouth to her neck and she's a sudden network of sparks from head to toe. Like she really is little Katie Beckett, never been kissed, and he's a boy she's managed to sneak past her parents. She's weak in the knees and clumsy as she fists her hands in his hair, pressing into him with no elegance at all, her mouth an _O_ of surprise at every new sensation.

"Hi," he says kissing her lips softly like he's never done it before. Like they're just meeting, and it feels like that. It really does. "Hi there."

They shouldn't stay. She knows they shouldn't, but she's comfortable here in this in-between time. On the floor with him, side by side with their backs to a wall that should be blue. Pale blue in her day.

"You're pretty good at that Spider-Man stuff." He kisses a long scrape across the back of her knuckles. "Lots of practice?"

"Lots." She thinks about telling him a story, but there are too many to choose from. She will someday. She knows she will, but something else comes in the moment. "I didn't even really need to most of the time."

"No?" That raises an eyebrow, and she wants to laugh. He's terrified of her dad for no good reason, and she's sure that he's built him up as some monstrously strict figure.

"Not really." She thinks about life here in this place. Quiet Sunday mornings sharing sections of the paper. The dynamic among the three of them she didn't realize was strange until she was almost leaving for college. "My parents leaned hard to the _I'm not angry, just disappointed_ end of the spectrum. I knew how to push their buttons when I needed to. My dad's, especially. And sometimes I needed to because . . ."

". . . because otherwise, what's teenage immortality for?"

"Exactly." She smiles into his shoulder. "But for the most part, they gave me a lot of space."

"And still the Spider-Man routine." She can't tell if it's a poke at her or he's just mulling it over.

"It was kind of . . . the principle of the thing." She says and it's a little bit inside her own head. It's a little bit her working out the why of it, when she's not prone to that kind of question. Not when it comes to herself, anyway. "I could come in the front door late and live through a lecture . . ."

"Or take the ninja route and tell a bold-faced lie in the morning?"

She laughs and ducks closer to him, because that's it. That's it exactly, but there's more, and she might end up telling him a story after all. Just this one.

"The first time . . ." She stumbles when the name won't come. She sees his face as clear as day. The pimple on his chin and the skinny neck drowning in the collar of a shirt he must've borrowed from his older brother. She shakes her head. "A guy. I talked him into sneaking into a second movie . . ."

"Ooh, a bad influence even then." He kisses her hard. "Sexy."

" _Not_ sexy." She pushes him away, laughing as she remembers the awful army jacket and flower-print babydoll dress. The Doc Martens she'd gotten someone to run over with their car so they wouldn't look too new. "He was terrified. Determined to walk me to the door and own up to my parents, and I really didn't know how to tell him."

"Tell him?"

That's definitely a poke. He's leaning in, as eager for the story as he is for this sudden-onset introspection on her part. It makes her blush, but she stumbles ahead, interested in spite of herself. Interested _in_ herself.

"That my curfew was kind of a guideline?" She pictures it. The half dozen times she'd _really_ pushed it and the way her parents would sit, calmly facing her on the couch, explaining the whys and wherefores of their concerns. "I don't know . . . . that my parents were more like . . . "

". . . like roommates with more seniority in the house?" He catches her look. "Just me, then. Continue."

She laughs. "No. You're . . . you're not wrong."

She wonders if it's an only-child thing. She's hasn't thought about the fact that they have that in common, Martha being so different from either of her parents. But she thinks about his relationship with Alexis and sees the pattern.

She thinks about the boy whose name she can't remember with his seemingly endless string of siblings. Parents who could never seem to keep straight their own kids' names, let alone hers, though they weren't unkind. She thinks about his noisy, falling-down house. How different it was from here, and she wonders.

"It's a pretty neat solution," he says, breaking into her reverie. "Awkward non-confrontation avoided. _Serious_ bad-girl cred scored with the young man you had designs on. Well done, Becks."

It catches her a second time. The nickname, sounding wrong, right, and thrilling in his mouth, and she needs a taste. She needs it more than anything and suddenly she's in his lap. Suddenly her knees knock into the baseboards and her hands are diving under his clothes.

"I hate when you call me that."

* * *

 

Things stop far short of where they might. Somehow. Some remote sense of responsibility reins things in, or maybe it's just that sex on a strange, poorly swept hardwood floor loses its allure when there are—in theory—other options.

Whatever it is, somehow they stop. They tug each other's clothes back to rights, trying to stifle the laughter that bubbles up. Trying to be quick and quiet and not really getting close to either as they finger comb each other's hair into something that at least doesn't shout _backseat sex_ from the rooftops.

He plays up the disappointment when she takes him back out by the stairs, but the deadbolt wasn't thrown, and the door will lock behind them. And anyway, the moment's kind of gone. Her childhood slips from her shoulders as they step quietly out on to the stoop like civilized people who've just committed a B & E and make their way around to the side of the building to replace the hose and its container.

Their linked hands swing between them on the long walk back to her dad's through streets subdued, if not silenced, by the middle of the night. He wheedles the whole time.

"Other options, Beckett. You lured me back into my pants with explicit promises of other options."

"Simply _observing_ that I have a bed and _you_ have a bed . . ."

". . . and _I_ have an apartment full of flat surfaces and _you_ have an apartment full of flat surfaces . . . . "

"Does _not_ constitute any kind of promise or contract," she finishes, ignoring his interjection entirely.

"Constitute? Promise or contract?" He rounds on her, taking her by the shoulders and stopping their progress. "That sounds like lawyer talk." He shakes his head, like he's just come to a regrettable decision. "That's it. Your'e not allowed to hang out with your dad anymore."

She laughs, bumping herself into him. They're a few doors down from her dad's building and she feels like lingering. She feels like hanging on to him a little while longer tonight.

"Hey, that's your car, isn't it?" he says over the top of her head. "Any chance I can talk you . . ."

"None." She tips back and pulls his mouth down to hers. "None at all, Castle."

"Fine." He pouts and gets another kiss out of it. He wants to hang on a little longer, too. "Should I walk you to the door? Own up?"

Her stomach takes a little leap. It's a joke, but it's kind of not. They're still "in the closet" as he insists on saying, and it's a nudge. Martha and Alexis are due home soon, and they haven't talked about it. Who they'll tell and when, and she doesn't want to think about it right now. She's been knocked out of time enough for one night, and the future can just stay where it is.

"Nope. Thought I'd shimmy up the trellis." She flicks an eyebrow at him. "Bad girl cred."

"Oh, you're flush with that, Beckett." He sweeps a hot look over her, head to toe, and every single thing she's ever whispered in his ear—he's ever whispered in hers—rises to the surface of her skin.

"Go," she says, pushing him away and pulling him back at the same time. Kissing him. "Go, Castle, before we get arrested."

"No problem. I have an in with the cops." He lets his hands drift south a little, then steps back with his palms out.

He takes a step and another step. He's going. He needs to. She wants him to, but there's one more thing. She rushes the few steps to him, head down, and her arms go around him. A bear hug that feels right and ridiculous at the same time.

"Thanks, Castle." She kisses his shoulder. His cheek. She lifts up on her toes and kisses his forehead. "Thank you for coming home with me."

His arms tighten around her. His breath catches and and it's this aching moment. Tiny and huge. Light and momentous and happy and _aching_ all at once.

"Any time, Kate."

* * *

 

She slips off her shoes and creeps back up the stairs. She turns the key in the lock and slips soundlessly through the door. Through her father's tidy living room and down the hall to the guest room, nervous and listening with every step, but the place is quiet.

It's strangely comforting and a sharp little sorrow, too. Realization that her dad sleeps well and soundly these days. Recognition that she'd know that if she were better about things like this. Dinner where one of them cooks. Spending the occasional night, because her dad doesn't call it the guest room.

She's tired. Glad when she eases the door shut at last. She feels the evening weighing on her pleasantly. Mostly pleasantly, and it's a struggle even to strip off her socks and workout clothes and back into her pajamas.

She's sure her eyes will close the minute her head hits the pillow, but sleep won't come. The inside of her head rings with the strange half clang of a broken bell. She remembers her promise.

She flops on to her stomach, half hanging over the edge of the bed as she gropes through the pile of clothes she's left tumbled together and comes up with her phone.

_Breakfast?_

It takes a little while for him to answer. A full three minutes or so, and she's grumpy about it. He could be underground. Or somewhere it's stupid to stop and look at a text. But she's grumpy about it.

_Miss me already?_

She sticks her tongue out at the phone and texts back _Yes_. Because it's true, isn't it?

_Me, too. When and where?_

She taps out the address. Tells him _seven_ and grins at the thought of him groaning at the early hour. Ellipses pop up on her screen. He's typing, but it hovers there a while and she wonders until it comes through.

_Just us?_

She knows what he's asking. Asking again, really, and for a minute the idea captivates her. Sitting shoulder to shoulder with him. Holding hands under the table and rolling her eyes at her dad's stupid jokes. At _his_ stupid jokes.

But her and him and a boy who once had a crush on her. It feels like enough for one 24-hour period.

_Just us_

She sends the two words, and that _doesn't_ feel like quite enough.

_This time_

She adds it quickly. Too quickly even for him to respond in between. She sees the ellipses hover, like he's backing over whatever he'd been about to send.

_This time. Sounds good._

And that feels like enough.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: All done. Thanks for reading. Get yourself a macaron. Not a macaroon. A macaron.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thanks, as always, for reading. These first couple chapters are short, the second two a bit longer. I'll post every day or every other for the next few.


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